Deus Ex Machina
by FenOnFire
Summary: Dan once claimed to serve Nemesis. Chris should have listened.
1. Chapter 1

Deus Ex Machina

A/N: I was rewatching some episodes a while ago, and Dan's line about serving Nemesis made me laugh. But, given the general craziness of the series... What if it was true? The idea bugged me long after I'd forgotten the episode in question, and eventually developed into a story... Hence this fic.

Written for the amusement of us fans, no money is being made off it. Dan, Chris, and all other Dan VS. characters are the property of their creators and/or the Hub. Nemesis is mythological and therefore public domain.

* * *

Chris had always known that his friend Dan had a flair for the dramatic. Who else would go to such lengths against ninjas, over cookies? And he often made references to literature and mythology, to the point that Chris could somewhat accurately guess the plots to stories he'd never read (not that Chris was, you know, illiterate or something, he just never got around to reading much), simply based on the context in which Dan referred to them.

"Which brings me to my current predicament", he thought, clutching his wounded friend tightly to his chest.

He thought that Dan had been his usual melodramatic self when he said that he served the goddess Nemesis. Heck, he'd even thought that Dan was making up the goddess' existence, until he made a Boogle search of Greek legends. But now, as the Grecian Goddess of Divine Vengeance Herself towered over him, he wasn't so sure. She grinned toothily at him (oh my God...dess... she even has the same _teeth_ as Dan!). He recognized that expression, even on the face of a glowing, seven-meter tall Mediterranean woman: It was the same one Dan got when his vengeful scheming had come to fruition, and people ran screaming in all directions. And all this time, Chris had thought the phrase "The gods smile on us" was a happy one. He really should have known better.

_Earlier that day..._

"CHRIIIIIIIIISSS!" The half-Canadian flinched, dropping his eight quarts of olive-and-cheese salad... thing that he had bought to snack on. It was healthy! There wasn't even any meat it it! Dried tomatoes and sunflower seeds with garlic olive oil topped off the deliciously salty dish... and now, it was decorating the carpet. "Why is it always when I'm eating?" He mused, scooping the food back into its container.

"CHRIS! I NEED YOU TO HELP ME _DESTROY_ THEM! QUIT STUFFING YOUR PIEHOLE AND COME TO MY AID!"

"Yeah, Dan, I'll be right there... um, actually, can it wait until tomorrow, Elise wants to have movie night-"

"Oh, we all know what _that's_ code for! Traitor!" Sometimes Chris wondered if Dan took the Bro Code (and their friendship) just a little too seriously.

"Come on, we've had it planned for a week, please?" His phone buzzed, and he checked it. A text from Elise read 'Mild workplace emergency, not going to be home until late tonight, ttyl'. He groaned. There was no escape now. "Be right there, Dan." Now he was beginning to wonder why the intrusive little man hadn't already come up through the floor or something...

He opened the front door, where Dan had been knocking furiously. It must have been with his head- someone had actually managed to get a strait-jacket and some chains on him, and his feet were shackled together. Dan lost his tenuous balance and fell face-first into Chris' house.

"How did you _get_ here?" Chris looked around for any sort of vehicle, stepped outside and looked on the roof just in case it was a plane, and dragged Dan to the garage. Dan ranted and raved incoherently as Chris sawed through the locks, and the instant the chains were gone Dan squeezed himself free of the jacket. Okay, Chris was definitely making sure to stay on Dan's good side forever. Once on his List was bad enough...

"...the injustice of it all! Chris, are you even listening?" Dan concluded.

"Uh, could you repeat that first part, Dan, I didn't catch that." Dan threw up his hands in frustnoyance (Chris had a whole vocabulary of Dan's moods, most of them different flavors of angry) and growled like a feral cat. No offense meant to Mr. Mumbles.

"Never mind! It'll take too long! Just meet me at my place in four hours with the things on this list!" Dan shoved said list into Chris's hands. It read:

Operation YOLO-Punk  
1) Butter (4 cups)  
2) Jumper cables  
3) 57 rats (the WILD ones, no pets)  
4) Seriously, why would anyone want pet rats? Tell them to take the ones in my apartment if they like them so much.  
5) Motor oil  
6) A bottle of Absinthe  
7) A better name for my vengeance.

Chris sighed. It was going to be a long day.

_Later..._

"Fifty-Three, Fifty-Four, Fifty-Five... Aw, Come on! We're short two!" Dan ran around, looking for any missing rodents. "All I asked was for you to go alone into the dank, filthy sewers and capture fifty-seven disease-ridden rats! Is that really so much to ask for? Is it?"

Chris sure thought so. "Dan, does it really matter if we're missing two? Couldn't we use the ones in your apartment?" He paused for a moment. "On that note, how bad is your rat infestation?"

"It's not an infestation, Chris, they're free-range cat food-slash-toys for Mr. Mumbles," Dan said somewhat condescendingly. "To supplement her standard fare, of course. Besides, they eat the roaches. It's a whole ecosystem in here. A delicate balance. A circle of life, if you will."

"Uhh..." Chris' mind refused to continue down that metaphorical path through the horrifying implications.

"Let's get started! Chris, I need you to melt the butter and mix it with the absinthe, I'll get the explosives."

"Alrighty then."


	2. Chapter 2

Dan was a little offended at Chris's ignoring him. He was telling him all about the grave injustice committed against him this very morning, and all Chris could do was pry him free from several chains! It's like he wasn't even paying attention! _Probably had all his manly essence stolen from him by that horrible succubus he calls a wife_, he thought. _That makes sense_.

After giving Chris a list of simple instructions, he went back to his apartment. Mr. Mumbles gave him a sweet little "mew!" as he walked by, and Dan gave her a bowl of fresh water. Well, it had only been in the sink a couple days, anyway. Mr. Mumbles could handle it, though- she'd probably survived worse in the streets. And if not, a little bacteria never hurt anybody.

As he prepared for Chris' arrival (by eating some old pizza, pushing some garbage back into the pile, and so on), he thought of the events that had led to his unjust and unlawful capture...

Dan was walking down the stairs to his beloved car. The faithful red jalopy awaited his arrival. As Dan neared the machine, something terrible happened. A teenager on a skateboard flew up a makeshift ramp and slammed onto the hood of his car, leaving a dent.

"HEY! What's the meaning of this? My car is not a skate park, you hoodlum!"

"YOLO, dude!" the skater yelled as he zipped down the street. Well, the dent wasn't too bad. It was on a spot that needed touching up anyways. Still, the thought that there were people who thought his car was an acceptable place to slam their body weight onto was horrifying.

"What kind of nonsense is 'yolo', anyways?" Dan growled as he got in the car. "Stupid skaters. Should all be in jail or something..."

As Dan drove to the store, yowling at pedestrians and old people and narrowly missing a nun (he was going to hit her but she jumped out of the way), he was forced to slam on his brakes. There, at the stoplight, was a group of street performers. They were doing some kind of mime-clown-dance-theatre combo that somehow managed to be worse than any of those elements. Dan seethed in his seat, like a tea kettle full of electric eels. They were sweaty, shirtless, and covered in body paint. Each had a single letter painted to his back, spelling YOLO.

Dan growled. "What _is_ this stupid crap? It's making me late for my shows!" He continued grumbling as the street performers continued to obstruct traffic. A passing police car startled them into dispersing. "Oh, sure, inconvenience everyone else but it's the cops you gotta worry about..."

Eventually Dan made it to the store, where he realized he had forgotten his list at home. Balling his fists in frustration, he stifled a sound of some kind. Let's see... Milk, cereal, toilet paper, more cat food, and... oh! A sale on doughnuts! Score! There was only one box left when he arrived. It was glorious. Artificial chocolate frosting gleamed enticingly, each factory-formed doughnut ring equal in size and shape- surely, this was the food of the gods. As he reached for the lone box, some teenagers snagged it, tore it open, and messily devoured the contents.

"You... you... **SAVAGES**!" Dan burst out. "HEATHENS! I was going to _buy_ those! You didn't even pay for them!" The metaphorical eel kettle was beginning to whistle. Then, one of the feral teens looked at him and smiled, teeth stained with chocolate doughnut gore.

"YOLO, dude."  
Oh, the kettle was at full boil now. Sparking, too. "RRRAAAAAAAAAAGH!" Dan screamed, kicked the filthy thief over and ran out of the store, oblivious to the shoplifting alarms he'd set off. Once outside, he dropped to his knees, raised his fists in the air, and declared war:

"**YYYOOOOOLLLOOOOOOOO!**"

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A/N: A big 'thank you' to my readers, and especially to my two faves, "Saya and Hagi together 4 ever" and "Fox Among Foxes."


	3. Chapter 3

"Dan, don't you think you're overreacting just a little? I can buy you more doughnuts if you want," Chris said. He didn't know why he kept trying to dissuade his friend. It never worked. "Maybe I'll get myself a box or ten..."

"It's not about the _doughnuts_, Chris, it's about human dignity, and defending the rights of normal peope!" Yelled Dan. Chris thought it was funny that Dan counted himself as 'normal', but didn't say anything. He just kept walking to the pet store. "And besides, they ate without paying. That's a _crime_, you know. Don't you support the Constitution?"

"Dan, you have a vendetta against George Washington and you're on the no-fly list."

"So?"

Chris and Elise looked at each other. Dan just wasn't getting it. "What's so bad about YOLO anyway? It's just an expression," said Chris. Now would be a bad time to point out that he had a shirt with the offending phrase. It looked cool and was only ten bucks. Why wouldn't he buy it? Besides, YOLO.

"It is NOT an expression! An expression consists of several words, and I don't think YOLO is a word!"

"Actually, it's an abbreviation. It means, You Only Live Once," Chris explained.

"Oh, so that's their excuse to continue degrading the English language? It's not enough that people do those god-awful abbreviations in text messages and e-mail, now they have to do it in real life? It's worse than Newspeak!" Dan was getting worked up. They had walked into the store for some feeder rats, since Chris couldn't find anymore sewer rats. People were pulling their children closer, not wanting the jagged-toothed man to suddenly maul them or something. "At least Newspeak had an agenda behind it, this is just _stupid_."

"Newspeak? Come on Dan, now I know you're being silly," said Elise. Operation Orwellian Nightmare had been canceled a few years ago when the stilted vocabulary and unwieldy grammar made for some major communications problems, such as 'There's a huge guy with a Bowie knife to your right'. Man, was that a big stack of claims to fill out... She was glad Chris bought the emergency appendectomy story.

"That's what you want us to think. You're in the Inner Party!" Dan pointed an accusing finger at Chris' wife.

"Hey! Elise is not in some shadowy government organization!" Chris said, defending his wife. "She just... Um, what is your job again, honey?"

"Well, it's all very complicated-"

"She's probably an overpaid secretary with a sugar daddy! Divorce her immediately!"

"DAN!" The couple chorused.

"Dan, that was very rude! You should say sorry to Elise!"

"Okay, _Big Brother_, I'm sorry Elise is working for the Inner Party. As a secretary." Then he grumbled something about sugar daddies.

Chris rolled his eyes, knowing that was as close as he'd ever get to an actual apology. They made it to the checkout line with two live feeder rats. They (meaning Chris) paid for their vermin and left.

"Don't worry, you two. There's no cold-blooded, murderous reptiles in your future. Except for Elise." Dan paused to think for a moment. "Well, I can't guarantee that some other animal won't kill you horribly, but that's just nature. You understand, right?" The two rats didn't seem to care. One pooped on their food pellets.

"Yes! Rebel against the symbols of oppression! There is a varied and many-splendored change coming to your diet!" Chris remarked once again that Dan didn't seem capable of talking. He could growl, yell, scream, and very rarely give off the appearance of calmness, but talking? Never.

The ride back to Dan's apartment was uneventful. Thank goodness for small mercies. Elise got a beep in her phone, and sneaked back to the garage.

"Remember Chris, we have to do this right! I don't want any of your shenanigans messing up a perfectly good revenge scheme."

"Alrighty then. Hey, where's Elise?"

"Who cares, come help me with these wires."

Meanwhile...

"Okay, let me get this straight."

"Take your time, Dancing Shadow."

"The phrase YOLO is not, as it would seem, another stupid slang phrase that will die out once the current crop of high schoolers and college kids graduate. Like 'radical' or 'tubular'," said Elise, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"That's correct," her boss' voice answered her. "Operation Orwellian Nightmare resulted in mass defection in all G8 and several other nations, as teaching Newspeak caused certain susceptible individuals to actually take the propaganda to heart. Currently, they are attempting to influence the language of younger generations, and to this end invented chat-speak, emotes, and of course the hypno-memetic powerhouse that is YOLO."

Elise shook her head, still gripping the bridge of her nose. Why, oh why, did so many of her recent missions involve Dan's paranoid ramblings? "But why YOLO?"

"English is the most widely-spread language on earth. Imagine the impact on future generations if even non-fluent English speakers were impaired by his devious phrase; it's the perfect first strike and must be stopped. The fate of literacy, corporate-run democracies, and freedom depend on it. Over and out," the faceless voice finished.

"Over and out," Elise parroted. She picked up a crossbow and fired an arrow directly into the first O of a YOLO sticker Chris had put on the wall. Oh no... Was Chris susceptible?

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A/N: A special thanks to locolycan777 and Luigi's Wacky World for the favorites, and my reviews from Mytokyokitty. I really appreciate your support!


	4. Chapter 4

"Look, Dan, all I'm saying is that this is a really ungood idea, you know?" Chris said through a mouthful of jelly doughnut. Then he slurped down some coffee.

"_Wha_t did you say?"

"I said it might be a bad idea. They're just kids," he explained, looking at the hallucinating rats in the backseat. Chris had pointed out to Dan that the effects of absinthe weren't any different than other hard liquors, despite rumor to the contrary, but Dan retorted that Dr. Mauvaise's No. 52 Blend wasn't the same as other absinthe.

"You didn't say it was a bad idea!" Dan snarled, jagged teeth coming together violently on a piece of licorice.

"Yes I did!"

Dan sighed dramatically, tearing the licorice like a dog tears a piece of meat. Then he cheered up. "Hey look! It's those punks! It looks like they're congregating in that dilapidated warehouse over there."

Chris' brow furrowed. All of a sudden he couldn't remember what 'congregating' and 'dilapidated' meant. "Uh, yeah."

"So now that we know where they're meeting we can move on to Phase Two! YOLO shall be no more!"

"I still don't see what's so bad about it," Chris mumbled under his breath. "Just slang. The idea behind it isn't even ungood."

"See, you said it again! You _are_ in the Inner Party!" Dan accused, shouting in his face. How did Dan not have hearing loss by this point with all the shouting and explosions he subjected himself to? How did Chris? Chris parked the car a safe distance from the building, Dan hopping out the window and running before the car was even fully stopped. He was halfway up the rusty fire escape by the time Chris caught up with him. When he tried to follow, the escape broke under his weight. Fortunately he wasn't very high up.

"Ouch! Dan, wait! What am I supposed to do with all this?"

"Just wait here while I scope things out. Then when I come back start giving me some rats." He vanished, grumbling under his breath

While Chris wondered exactly how he was going to do that, he saw some teens walking right up to him. One had a plain blue jumpsuit on, the other was a blonde androgynous figure with dreadlocks and baggy, psychedelic clothing. He (Chris mentally put a question mark on the pronoun) came closer, somehow managing to look menacing despite the peace sign necklace and the mildly offensive odor of a total pothead who'd remembered to shower that day.

"Hey, bro, you feelin' good?"

"Um, yeah, I was um... trying to fix this ladder here," Chris lied, pointing at the broken fire escape.

"Whoooaaah, dude, how'd that happen?" Chris really wished the hippie's voice wasn't androgynous as well. He wondered if the person was related to that guy who used to run that animal shelter.

"I don't know, I guess it just fell off."

"Wanna come inside? We got brownies! Not the good kind, just regular."

"Well... Sure, I guess." Why should Dan get all the fun? "Is that all there is or do you have cookies, too?"

"Oatmeal raisin choco-chip, dude!"

"Sweet!"

-line-

Dan shuffled through an air duct, stopping to listen to some men in blue jumpsuits talking to one another.

"So, any new oldthinkers coming?"

"What?"

"Ermm... Oldthinkers nowcome?

"Unthought." He didn't look pleased.

"Oh. Want brownies...?"

"Choco?"

"Doubleplusgood tasty!"

"Hmm. Room 111."

"UNYES! Me duckspeaker!"

The other man was dragged away by guards. Dan arced an eyebrow. "Tch. Imbeciles."

The blue jumpsuited man wheeled around to the voice, but Dan had already moved on.

* * *

A slim, feminine figure in loose-fitting black clothing and a mask dropped down in a parking lot. She looked to her left, seeing a familiar car. "Chris..."

There was laughter. She turned to look, and saw her husband walking into a building with a hippie... woman...? and a man in a jumpsuit. Chris was talking excitedly to the jumpsuit man. Concerns about his susceptibility rose up in her again, but she ignored them. She had to focus on the mission. And try to dodge whatever lunatic plan Dan was setting in motion. She'd probably end up working his plans into her schemes anyways.

She skillfully hopped up to the roof, and disappeared into a vent.

"Ouch!

"Hey! Watch it!"

They'd bumped heads. Great, fantastic, now Dan knew she was here and the whole mission was doomed.

"You can't have my cookies!"

"Dan, it's me, Elise!"

"You still can't have them! What are you doing here anyway? Here to make sure the Inner Party remains safe? Is your _sugar daddy_ in there?"

"No, actually I'm here to save Chris from them," she said. It was better to ignore that last question entirely. A shouting match in a crowded metal tube wouldn't help anyone. Then, figuring it couldn't hurt to let the conspiracy nut in on an actual conspiracy, "What are _you_ doing here? Maybe we could work toget-"

"Out of my way! You should be out of here before I unleash the lords of the sewers!"

"Lords of what?"

Dan scoffed. "Rats! I'm letting a bunch of hopped-up rats in here."

"That's it?" Elise had been expecting a little more.

"_No_, that's not _it_, Elise. That's only Phase One in a plan I call... Operation YOLO. Needs a better name, I know, but that's a minor detail in the grand scheme of things," he sneered. Oh, yes. Phase One was just the beginning. His heart sang at the thought of Phase Two... the smoke, the screaming, his vengeance sated...

Elise threw the cackling man a concerned look before shoving her way past him.

"Ouch! Elise, you did that on purpose!"

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A/N: Thanks to reviewers EB and... anonymous Guest.


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